1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer that implements printing by ejecting dots of two different types differing in dot diameter onto a printing medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, printers of ink-jet format (called ink-jet printers) that print of images by ejecting ink drops of differing amounts of ink have come into widespread use. An ink jet printer has a plurality of dot apportionment tables that set the dot production rate. In a dot apportionment table, production rate of dots of differing dot diameter is set according to tone value. The ink-jet printer will select a dot apportionment table according to the print mode, e.g. the resolution, for use in printing.
However, in order to the reduce the occurrence of white stripes (known as “banding”) in printed images, conventional ink-jet printers are set to frequently use of dot apportionment tables that use large numbers of large-diameter dots, irrespective of the content of the particular image represented by the image data. A resultant problem is that flesh colors, e.g. human faces, which are required to have minimal grainy appearance (i.e. low graininess), are also reproduced with large-diameter dots, thus exacerbating graininess of flesh colors.
Also, with conventional ink-jet printers, only a single dot apportionment table was able to be selected for a printing mode. Thus, it was not possible to print while switching among suitable dot apportionment tables according to the content of the image, e.g. objects such as people or landscapes.